Four Fears
by x.Broken. .Hallelujah.x
Summary: Tobias goes through his fear landscape for the first time since Allegiant. Major Spoiler Warning. Post-Allegiant, Pre-We Can Be Mended. Minor FourTris.


**_Disclaimer:_** _This fanfiction contains major spoilers of Allegiant and minor spoilers of We Can Be Mended. This fanfiction also contains a passage from We Can Be Mended, those words belong to Veronica Roth and not me._

 _I tried to not make Tobias OOC. He was more vulnerable after Allegiant, but I'm worried I almost made him too vulnerable._

 _This fanfiction happens between Allegiant and We Can Be Mended (the Divergent Series epilogue short story), and the passages are from WCBM when Tobias is talking to Christina about his fear landscape, and he remembers how it changes. This takes place when Tobias first goes in after Allegiant to find out if his fears have changed._

 _I hope you enjoy._

* * *

 _I have four fears, still. They are different than they were when Tris died, five years ago._

I feel the familiar ache of the needle as I plunge it into my neck. I fumble for a second and have to use both hands to press in the plunger. It had been so long since I had been through my fear landscape I almost forgot how to do the injection. I feel the itch to go in again, to see if my fears have changed, to see if _she_ is in them, to see if my father still is. A lot has changed since the last time I went through it; the faction system has broken down, I reconciled with my mother, I stood up to my father, _she_ died.

I went straight to the second floor when I entered. I couldn't bear to see the pit again, still couldn't bear to face the memories of my time spent in there.

I try not to think of what I might be about to face as I walk into the room, the serum kicking in. Adrenaline races through me as I feel my heart start hammering in my chest, a tingling-hot flush rising below my skin, the hot rush to my head. I am filled with the familiar feeling of needing to react, although I am not sure to what just yet. My legs zinging and twitching with energy, my mouth goes cotton dry, and a feeling of dread washes over me. I close my eyes as I bathe in the feeling.

* * *

I feel the ground moving before I open my eyes. It feels like a small rumble, like a hum, under my feet. I am moving, my center of gravity off as I'm overcome with the feeling of freefall. My stomach lurches and I almost can't open my eyes. I dare to crack one open and I am greeted with a control panel, big buttons and levers. Gages and lights signalling red, warning me, I assume, of something that is about to happen. I look above the panel and I completely freeze when I realized what was happening. I was in a plane. It was above the city of Chicago. It was going to crash.

The ground was approaching, faster, faster at a dizzying pace. We barely miss some bigger buildings, leaving them unscaved by a hair. The hum underneath my feet was sputtering until it stopped and the falling became faster. My stomach lurched and I nearly vomited. Catching myself I lunged for the cockpit in a panic. Flicking every switch, hitting every button I could find, trying in vain to stop the downward descent of the plane. I try not to look down, if I do I'll freeze, like an animal in a car's headlights. Years and years of practice and exposure have helped me move when I'm above heights.

When nothing works I just shut my eyes, so tight that my head is pounding. I grab onto whatever I can, I can imagine my knuckles turning white. I try to calm my breathing as I brace for the crash. Looks like I won't be able to calm down to stop it, I will have to face it head on. When the crash comes it feels like hitting a brick wall, the sound of metal crushing, the sound of destruction all around me. White appears behind my eyes.

 _In the first, I fly high above the city in an airplane that has run out of fuel. I tumble toward the ground, with no chance of rescue._

* * *

When I open my eyes I find I am laying down, there is cold wet brick against my back. I try to lift them but find they are tied down by thick rope, keeping my back against the rough floor. The room looks somewhere kin to a dungeon, and the air is musty. My next fear would usually be a closing room, being confined and squeezed, but this room was open, albeit a little stuffy. I briefly wondered how much else has changed.

A dark apparition appears in front of me, it looks like a dense mass, slowly collecting, taking the form of something that resembled human. A long, thin object extending from it's "hand".

"Tobias, this is for your own good."

It was _his_ voice. I thought I was over him, that he wouldn't appear. His face creeped into the black form. It was surprising to see his face normal though, not the dark pits for eyes in my usual fear landscape. He looked human, not as threatening, although his face was set to a scowl.

Christina, Zeke, Shauna, and my mother fade in. They are knelt over, their backs facing me. They appear almost as statues.

I watch in horror as Marcus's arm swings in a wide circle, the belt lashing out, striking them with it in one sweeping motion. It almost seemed alive, twisting and turning on its own. Blood covered the ground, pooling at their feet. They didn't move, didn't flinch, just sat perfectly still as Marcus's belt carved into their flesh.

I struggle hard against the restraints, any words I'm about to scream caught in my throat. I had already hurt so many people, was responsible for so many deaths, killed so many people. Every lay of the belt stirs the feeling of guilt inside of me. I flinch at the sickening sound of leather on skin, remember feeling the same belt brand mine, my tattoos now covering the scars. Now they are being hurt because of me, the ones left, the ones I had managed to protect. They were still not safe.

I cannot cover my ears to stop the noise, all I can do struggle pitifully against the ropes. _This isn't real. They are okay. Marcus can't hurt them._ I chant that over and over in my head, before long I can visualize the words themselves. I think of nothing, pushing the thoughts aside until there is nothing but me and the sound of my breath in my head getting slower, slower, _slower_.

I blink and they are gone, the room is gone, the ropes are gone. I let out a sigh of relief, relaxing my arms, taking a breather before the inevitable I know is about to come. I have at least two more fears if the number hasn't changed.

 _In the second, I am immobile as a dark force- usually with David's face, or Marcus's- attacks the ones I care about._

* * *

I'm bathed in darkness, I lie in wait of what is to come next.

It starts with a tingling, under my skin, almost like insects crawling under my skin, all over. It is uncomfortable and I find myself unconsciously scratching my skin. The tingle slowly morphed into a burn, slowly at first, from the feeling of taking a scalding shower to a sunburn. The pain escalated as my body went into a flush. I twitch and roll and move, trying to find a comfortable position, thinking I can shift the pain away, but to no avail. This is what being on fire must feel like, like molten iron flowing through my veins, licking at my skin. It is consuming, threatening to swallow me up. All I can feel is it as even thought is drowned out.

I claw at the ground, my clothes, my skin, my hair. I desperately search for any relief. I roll and clutch myself as a noise that I barely recognize as human escapes from my throat. I rock back and forth in some kind of fetal position, trying to soothe the biting beneath my skin, trying some way to escape.

I try to push away the pain in my mind, to focus on something calming, bringing forth the most vivid memory I can. I imagine standing in a sea of grass, a calm wind blowing over me, cooling, soothing the pain away. I imagine looking up at a blue sky, staring at the clouds lazily passing over me.

I was so wrapped up in my daydream I almost didn't notice when the pain faded. Straightening out, stretching out kinks. I rolled my shoulders and neck, my whole body singing with relief, but also feeling a new feeling of excitement and fear run through my body.

 _In the third, I am in pain, and there is no relief. All I can do is endure._

* * *

The room faded to darkness again, it was dense and strangely heavy feeling. I bring my hands up to my face and find that the suffocating darkness even shrouded them. I feel my heart in my throat, it is fast. Suddenly a blinding light appears above me and I have to shield my eyes from it. Something big was coming, I knew it. Fresh adrenalin humming in my bones.

Suddenly, she appears behind me, another circle of light surrounding her, I feel her presence before I hear her voice.

"Tobias?" Her voice said, soft, but sure. I nearly didn't recognize it, it had been so long since I'd heard it. How could I forget her voice?

I whip around and there she is, the same way I left her before we parted ways to stop the war.

 _Tris._

Her blond hair cropped between her shoulders and chin. Her lean, muscular body was still the same, as well as the tattoos of the ravens peaking out from under her shirt. She was still sixteen, while I had aged years, but she was still striking and beautiful.

Suddenly I don't care if she hasn't aged, I don't care if this is a simulation, I don't care if she is dead. I swoop in without a word, one hand in her hair as I pull her lips roughly to mine.

She smells, tastes, and feels the same.

Our lips move together, in an intricate dance, her hands come behind my neck, into my hair, over my shoulders, and to my back. She runs her hand over my spine as if tracing my tattoos over my shirt. I don't want to part, don't want to face the reality that this is just a hallucination created from the serum, knowing that when I let go it will be all over. When I run out of breath I pull her into a hug, breathing in her scent, savoring the moment.

Her head barely comes at my collarbone. She fists my shirt with both hands and nuzzles underneath my chin. I can feel her breath on my neck, steady, rhythmic. I remember just how small and fragile she feels, but also how every inch of her bone is covered in muscle, small but deadly.

Suddenly, he appears in near us in his own pool of light, I can see him from my spot of looking over Tris' shoulder. It takes her a second more to realize, probably because she felt my breath hitch.

 _David._

Gun drawn, he points it at Tris. His wheelchair creaking a little bit as he shifts his weight.

Before I had a chance to react Tris' small hands are on my shoulders, shoving me away.

"I have to go." She said rather bluntly.

"Wait-"

"Tobias, I have to."

"I never got to tell you enough, and I know this isn't real, but I love you Tris."

And suddenly, the room flashed and everything faded into the weapons lab, her answer lost. I am standing in the far corner watching the scene unfold. I try to move, but some invisible force is holding me back, keeping me in my spot, the same as my second fear.

Tris is standing off with David. Gun drawn towards her, while she is looking between David and the keypad she needs to reach.

I hear the blast of the gun, the empty shell clattering on the ground, and a shout tears from my throat. The bullet strikes her in the side as I look away. Her hand reaches for the keypad as she fumbles a bit with the numbers. Her clothes were becoming soaked with blood, running on the floor. She is reaching for the button, the green button. I look away again just before the other gunshot. I hear it and hear the soft thud of her small frame hitting the floor, her hand smacking something on the way down. The fatal shot.

 _In the fourth, she dies._

I wanted to run to her, to hold her, to try to save her. I struggled, gritting my teeth, hoping I could somehow push through the barrier holding me still. But it was impossible, and all I could do is stand and watch her. Watch the blood pool on the floor beneath her, listen to the gurgling of her last breaths. Watch her hand go limp and fall from her wound. Watch the light drain out of her doe-like blue eyes.

Then I realize it, my last fear is like my others, but one thing was different, I have to watch her die, and I cannot do anything about it.

Suddenly, it was too much, it was all too much, it was torture. The realization of what I just witnessed. I remember her words to me, told by Caleb, ' _If I don't survive, tell Tobias I didn't want to leave him.'_ I remember seeing her broken body on the table, releasing her ashes two and a half years later. I remember all the suppressed memories of her that have taken so long to be able to make bearable, that I tried once to permanently erase from my mind. Memories that I drank to forget after work.

My vision becomes clouded with haze and tears. Red hot pain seizes my chest. Anger, suppressed anger at Caleb for letting her go. Anger at her for not bringing a weapon. Anger at David, the bastard that no longer remembers what he did, the memory serum doing its job. Everything I thought I had been okay with, had moved past, came flooding back. It was seeing her, the memories once dim with time in my mind now clear and sharp.

I tell myself, ' _this isn't real, it's a sim.'_ But it is real, it happened. My worst fear had happened and I was forced to relive it everyday, every night.

 _It makes no sense, to fear the worst when the worst has already happened. Death can't happen twice, after all._

I scream and thrash, all rationality out the window. All thoughts that I would not leave the simulation unless I calm down went. I scream and scream and scream until nothing more comes out and my throat hurts. I collapse in a heap, all the fight left out of me and I'm forced to calm down, forced to accept, for now.

* * *

I try to keep my mind blank, to focus on my breathing. I want to get out of this hell, to escape, to run. I feel my heart slow, the serum wearing off. I open my eyes and I'm on the floor of dauntless headquarters again, knees tucked up to my chin. I probably look pathetic, but at this moment I don't care, all I can think of is her lifeless eyes, not what it is all supposed to mean.

 _It was me who told her that what she saw in the simulations wasn't her literal fear playing out in front of her-Well, are you really afraid of crows?- but something deeper, more symbolic. Still, it's difficult not to take my fourth fear exactly as it is, with her wide blue eyes staring up at me from the ground, their spark gone out._

Tears are now all I can see as I struggle to hold it together. Hopelessness bites at me, the same hopelessness I felt the first time I was staring at the vial of memory serum. The difference is there is no Christina here to stop me from wallowing in the depression.

I remember what Christina said to me when I was so close to erasing myself, _'You know what I'm holding on for? The moments that don't suck.'_ Lately it has seemed those moments are becoming far and few between. I've found myself holding onto the memory serum like a safety net, willing myself to make it through another day, saying if it was too much tomorrow I had the option. Some days I don't think about it and others it is the forefront of my mind.

Tris was strong, I knew she would never want me to give up with her gone. She always considered my safety above her own, would sacrifice herself for anybody, would've sacrificed herself for me. I always try to remember that living in depression is something she would've never wanted for me. She would've wanted me to move on, to be happy, even if it wasn't with her. Tris's selflessness was pure, unabated, with no hidden jealousy or ulterior motive, so strong that it bordered on reckless sometimes (that recklessness leading to her death). Knowing how Tris would react seeing me in this state is what has pushed me up to my feet to continue living each time.

Hauling myself up I look at my stash of serum, the only injections left, there would be no more. My stomach lurches at the thought of ever going back in, but I know with my obsessive tendencies I will be back, maybe not soon but I will. I can only assume my future attempts would be to find out if she is still there, to see if I am over her death, to see her face one last time.

As I exit, I see that it is raining, as if the sky is mourning her death still too. It is not so grey though, the sun is out and shining, casting sparkles off the drops. And there, off in the distance, clear and looping in the sky. _A rainbow._ A consolation for the crying sky. Quite literally a metaphor. Hope, healing, strength. _Mending._ I remember the thoughts I had years ago sitting next to Christina, the vial of memory serum in my hand:

 _Since I was young, I have always known this: Life damages us, every one. We can't escape that damage. But now, I am also learning this: We can be mended. We mend each other._

I always tried to convince myself that it was true, that the wound would heal faster than it had. Maybe it will take a lifetime. But I am more than certain now that it is true.

 _We can be mended._

 ** _I_** _can be mended._

 _fin._


End file.
